Writing '30' on No. 10 years ago
Ten. We rarely quote a competing publisher on these pages, but a comment Joel Klaassen of the Free Press made at an informal get-together with us last week seems as appropriate as any.
Joel, our friendly rival from around the corner and down the block, was counting what he said were the number of editors at the Hillsboro Star-Journal in the past decade or so.
We might quibble with Joel's tally a bit. We often find ourselves seeing numbers a bit differently than he does. But his point was the same:
Turnover is an unfortunate part of the community newspaper business.
Just as Joel has been lamenting the loss of several of his key staff members in his Free Press column in recent weeks, we find ourselves this week lamenting the loss of one of ours.
Grant Overstake, the Miami Herald veteran and former minister who did such a wonderful job writing award-winning feature stories for the Star-Journal over the past year or more, is moving on to work in public relations for Tabor College.
We're sorry to see Grant go. But we're happy that our loss will be Tabor's gain. And we understand why a job that essentially involves being on call 24/7 is hard-pressed to compete with one that is largely 9 to 5 and features four full weeks of vacation a year for essentially the same pay.
We've always tried to bring up-and-comers to Hillsboro to provide the best possible local news for readers of the Star-Journal.
Sometimes we've succeeded. One who comes to mind is Jen Wilson, who went on to a daily in Texas. She wrote recently about the McDonald's closing. We imagine she even now is reading about the recent reservoir water scare. Another is Chad Frey, now at the Newton Kansan, which over the years has taken a few from the Free Press, as well. Tabor took another, veteran teacher Sara Hill, a year or so ago.
Sometimes we haven't succeeded as well as we might have hoped. We won't recount those names. You probably know them as well as we do. A few of them we'd like to forget.
The problem with trying to bring in up-and-comers is that sometimes they up and leave. Tabor grad Joel Mathis, who worked in Marion, not Hillsboro, is now one of the nation's most visible "convergence journalists" at the Lawrence Journal-World. Mike Shields, another Hoch Publishing alumnus, also works there as an editor. We have two alums at the Omaha World Herald, one of the nation's truly great papers, and many others in other responsible positions elsewhere.
Community newspapers have become to the journalism business what the Wichita Wranglers are to Major League Baseball. We may feel sad when a star player moves on, but we really should count our blessings for the time they were able to spend with us at this level.
We'll miss Grant. But in writing "30," the old newspaper term for end of a story, on his tenure as Star-Journal editor, we won't be looking back. We'll be looking ahead to No. 11, or whatever number it is that friend Klaassen says will be the number of our next editor.
In the next few days, we'll be launching a major search to find him or her. We'll once again try to bring you the best person possible.
In the meantime, you'll be getting a bit larger dose than usual of the feature coverage of Tabor grad Rowena Plett, the expert countywide coverage of governmental expert Susan Cooper, the great photojournalism of Hillsboro's own Phyl Richert, the familiar sportswriting of Ryan Richter and more sports from another up-and-comer, Mike Norris.
We'll still be at starj@starj.com and at (620) 947-3975. And Mary Lancaster at Mary's Mats and More next door will still be helping us out when people are out of the office, covering stories.
So farewell, Grant. Hello, No. 11.
Others may worry about quantity. We'll worry about quality.
